[LinuxBIOS] linuxbios + xf86-video-unichrome: no VGA BIOS needed.

[Luc Verhaegen.]

On Sat, Mar 17, 2007 at 11:44:29AM +0100, Fredrik Ohrstrom wrote:
> Ubercool! This is exactly what I myself intended to do, and you
> have already done it!

This hasn't exactly happened overnight, it is not something one would do 
in a few days hacking. And i believe that also goes for the work that 
was already put into the linuxbios part of the story.

This whole story was about 2 completely different and seperate projects 
doing The Right Thing (tm) all along, totally independant of one 
another.

All i did now was try to find out what needed to be done for the final 
bit to work, and was surpised to see that it worked that beautifully, 
almost from the word go.

This is as much a credit to the linuxbios community as it is to my 
driver.

> My next goal is to initialize the display
> already in LinuxBios.

Basic VGA text console work is well underway, hope to have a small 
userspace app working in userspace later today (even though i'm not free 
to hack most of the evening, i will be tonight though). Userspace app to 
ease testing as porting should be trivial.

> I want it to go into a nice picture/or solid color
> within less a second after press the ON button.

Yes, people do seem to want to have a pretty bootsplash. This 
possibility will be given.

> Then, later as the
> X-server takes over the control, it will know that the display is
> initialized
> and can take over without blinking the display.... :-)
>
> Do you think it is possible?

Possible... linuxbios is, what, 99% C. So you can pretty much do 
anything if it fits into your rom. So it is possible.

But the real question is, is it sensible? And the answer there is: 
absolutely not.

Luc Verhaegen.